What exactly is Damascus steel?

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BallewBlade

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Oct 10, 2011
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Hey everyone sorry but i am new to the knife making world but very motivated by it. So can anyone tell me what exactly damascus is made of? I know it involves folding of the steel and what not, but can it be good durable steel? How can one get all those cool designs? Thanks:D
 
Damascus is steel that has been layered, forge welded together, drawn out, and then folded for whatever pattern you want. it is just as durable as most monosteels, if you put quality materials in, and is a heck of a lot prettier in most cases. the only requirement on steels is that one will etch much faster than the other. for example, 15N20 and 1080/1084/1095 is a common combination becuase the 10XX steel will etch much faster than the other. a parkerizing bath is used to make the blacks blacker. I have just heard the process explained, so I am no expert, but that is my understanding. as to how to get all the patterns, practice. a crap-ton of practice.
 
Ballew, Welcome to BF

The Geek is pretty spot on as far as modern "Damascus" steel is concerned. Damascus has become a generic name for any layered steel. The original Damascus was probably a form of wootz or crucible type steel. I like using the term "pattern welded" as it describes the process a bit better. You are literally welding a pattern into the steel. The cool patterns are done in many ways manipulating the layers in different ways. Each fold, number and thickness of initial layers, and even hammer strikes have an effect on the final pattern. Some of the more intricate mosaic patterns use wire edm to cut out the patterns forged into the final billet.

Can Damascus/Pattern welded steel make a good knife? Yes it can if it is made correctly. The smith must be careful to do everything right in the process and combine the steels in proper proportions to come out with a final carbon content that will make a quality blade. I have used my damascus knives to do every task I have asked my mono steel knives to do.

Why make Damascus? I do it for the beauty of the steel. It is the same reason I like to do Hamons, they both add life and individuality to the knife.
 
If you can find the 2 videos by Ed Caffrey on basic and mosaic Damascus, it will answer most of your questions on this.
 
So you have to combine different steel to get a pattern? You can't get that beautiful look from a solid piece?
 
BallewBlade said:
So you have to combine different steel to get a pattern? You can't get that beautiful look from a solid piece?
Click to expand...

In the example above the 1095,84,80 is darkened by the acid but the 15N20, due to it's nickel content, is not. The contrast of dark and bright layers makes the pattern,
 
Well you can etch a pattern on the blade using acid and a resist. I used to be done in an effort to fool customers into thinking the steel was true damascus. It should also be mentioned different alloys like mentioned above should be used. If you use something like 1095&1080 there would be little to no contrast hence little to no pattern.
 
With material like steel cable, the metal wires or layer of the billet are all the same alloy. When etched, a pattern will still show- due to the decarburization at the weld zones. The higher carbon wire cores etch at a faster rate than the lower carbon seams, so the seams can be polished bright, while the cores are left dark from the etch. Decent contrast can be achieved this way.
 
The easiest Damascus to do is cable because there is not a lot of folding involved (the initial learning process can be a little challenging if you are trying to figure it out alone, but I can get a raw beginner successfully making cable damascus in an afternoon) I make most of my Damascus from Aldo's 1084 and 15n20, it welds easily, heat treats easily, and moves beautifully under the hammer. If I need to build some inventory quickly I go out and hammer up a couple of cable blades. My customers love them, they don't hold an edge as well as the 1084/15n20 or 1095/nickel damascus, but a lot of people love the look.

Damascus steel is fun and great looking, and if you choose your component layers well will cut well. If you make bad choices for components it can be worthless. If your welds are good it can be just as good as mono-steel, otherwise it is only as good as your worst weld.

-Page
 
Years ago Wayne Goddard wrote an article stating that Damascus steel was any steel with a pattern. It could be layered Damascus, Wire Damascus, Wootz, or homogeneous - made from one steel. Just using the term Damascus is rather nebulous unless you qualify by stating what constitutes the make up of the Damascus, then everyone who reads about it knows what you are talking about.
 
Damascus steel is a blend of steels hammered into a blank during a heating process that at the time is not intended to be the actual hardening finish process of the blade. The end process involves an acid bath that removes the remains of the blending steels, thus revealing the random etching of the finished hardened blade. Which is why no blade is ever the same.
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damascus_steel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wootz_steel

If you want to be specific, as Ed Fowler points out, the technical term for what most people think of as "Damascus Steel" is actually "pattern welded", as apposed to something where the various micro structures of the homogonous steel create a variable color pattern.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pattern_welding

The homogonous version being bulat or wootz, or any steel where the microstructures have variable color that create a pattern. If you experimented with it, you could probably come up with several chemical compositions that were all essentially wootz/'damascus' simply because they contained the swirling pattern.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulat_steel
"Carbon steel consists of two components: pure iron, in the form of ferrite, and cementite or iron carbide, a compound of iron and carbon. Cementite is very hard and brittle; its hardness is about 640 by the Brinell hardness test, whereas ferrite is only 200. The amount of the carbon and the cooling regime determine the crystalline and chemical composition of the final steel. In bulat, the slow cooling process allowed the cementite to precipitate as micro particles in between ferrite crystals and arrange in random patterns. The color of the carbide is dark while steel is grey. This mixture is what leads to the famous patterning of Damascus steel.
Since cementite is essentially a ceramic, this also accounts for the famous sharpness of the Damascus (and bulat) steel. Cementite is unstable and breaks down between 600-1100°C into ferrite and carbon, so working the hot metal must be done very carefully."
 
Here's a piece. This pattern is made from my good friend Robert Eggerling. I'm sure that Rob will put one of his pieces up next!
 

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